So Far Away
by Aisling-Siobhan
Summary: DM/HP When Ginny dies Harry is forced to take in her daughter. Sadly, Lily is also the daughter he never managed to love. Sequel to "I Want To Love You". Song-fic. Slash. Mpreg. AU. Past H/G: mostly D/H. Angst. Character death. POV. Post DH.


Well, this is the long awaited sequel to "I Want to Love You", and I do mean _long_ awaited lol. Please enjoy… And I found my notes for "Through the Looking Glass", well, half of them. It fell out of the library book, and mum put it in one of my note books and never mentioned it, sigh.

"So Far Away"

**Disclaimer: ** Eh, as much as I hated the ending to the 7th book, I am pleased to announce it all belongs to JK, but please god, if she writes another book… let her kill off any Ginny-esque characters!

**Summary: ** [DM/HP] When Ginny dies Harry is forced to take in her daughter. Sadly, Lily is also the daughter he never managed to love. Sequel to "I Want To Love You".

**Warnings: ** Song-fic. Slash. Mpreg. AU. Past H/G: mostly D/H. Angst. Mentions of Het. Character death. POV. Post-DH.

**Rating: ** R SLASH!

**A/N: ** The song is by Staind and it's called "So Far Away". It's the sequel to "I WANT TO LOVE YOU", since so many people wanted Harry and Lily to have some sort of relationship. I am posting it as a separate one-shot, and following the trend of writing from the character's point of view.

_XXX_

**Words: **3,917

**Chapter 1**

**So Far Away**

_This is my life  
It's not what it was before  
All these feelings I've shared  
And these are my dreams  
That I'd never lived before  
Somebody shake me 'cause I-  
I must be sleeping._

I watched my mother out of the corner of my eyes. Lately, I always seem to be watching her, knocking on the bathroom door to check if she had drowned herself, watching her cut food to make sure she hadn't slit her wrists, following her to the shops in case she jumped out in front of a car, but I did it. I did it because I loved her, my pale, waxen mother with her straggly red hair and her red-rimmed brown eyes. I knew she loved me as well, she told me often enough. I was her sweet Lily, her only as she called me. She hardly spoke of my brothers, James and Albus; sometimes I wondered if she could even remember them. It's been almost a year since they went to live at my father's lover's home without us, and my mother has ignored James' birthday, and she'll probably ignore them at Christmas as well when it comes around. I got an invitation though, to the party last week. James turned fifteen on August 18th, but I couldn't go. I was too busy watching my mother.

I did it because she was worth it, even if my father didn't think so. He didn't love my mother like I loved her. He loved Draco Malfoy, and it killed my mother a little inside every time she picked up the newspaper and saw a photo of them together, or read about them. Her face would pale and her hands would shake and she'd start to cry softly, small little hiccups that made my heart ache for her. But I didn't cry at his loss the way she did. To be honest, I barely remember the man. His name was Harry James Potter. He was my father. But he was never much of a father to me.

_Now that we're here, it's so far away  
All the struggle we thought was in vain  
And all the mistakes, one life contained  
They all finally start to go away  
And now that we're here, it's so far away  
And I feel like I can face the day  
And I can forgive  
And I'm not ashamed to be  
The Person that I am today._

The night he left, James and Albus say he sent them notes, invitations to Malfoy Manor if they chose to live with him, and a gift each. I received nothing, not even a goodbye. I'm not bitter though, well, maybe a little bit; mostly I'm curious and hurt. Why couldn't he love me? If he could love them, why not me? I didn't really know when he and Draco 'found' each other, but I can only it assume it was before I was born, or why else would he hate me and not my brothers? Mother says he doesn't hate me, doesn't hate her that Harry is incapable of it, but sometimes I wonder. Or perhaps he's just stupid and doesn't realize the harm he causes Ginny Potter every time he goes out in public with Draco Malfoy?

I continued to watch her out of the corner of my eyes. She moved away from the sink, towards the breakfast table where I sat, and she fell heavily into a chair beside me.

"Hello love," she whispered to me, "has Harry flooed yet?"

It was the same every morning: mother would ask me if Harry wrote, or flooed, or appeared in the middle of the night to beg forgiveness and come home. Harry never came home. Harry went home the morning after Albus went to Hogwarts for the first time in 2016. This house, Godric's Hollow, was no more Harry's home now than it had been when my father was living with Muggles. It was mine and my mother's home, but she lived in hope that one day my father would come crawling back.

The soft, relatively expected sobbing that started from beside me had me frowning. There was obviously something in the paper about the Malfoy couple. And that's what they were mind you, a couple, and Malfoys. It was actually the day of James' party, last week, when my father had announced his engagement. He'd have to divorce my mother first of course, but he could still be engaged since they'd separated and were living at different addresses. I was going to go to James' party, but after reading something like that I knew my mum couldn't be left alone. It wouldn't have been safe. And yet, she still lived in hope.

I watched her run from the kitchen, sobbing with every footstep and I reached for the paper.

"What now?" I murmured, rubbing my eyes with my free hand.

My mouth fell open and my heart stopped beating for just a second. I felt pity for my mother, so much pity that I felt it rise up my throat like bile and had to swallow twice to push the feeling away. And then I felt pity for this child, this new baby, as I skimmed the article in the _Daily Prophet_ announcing that the Malfoys were expecting a baby girl in late December or early January. Harry was almost five months pregnant. My father… my father, mine, was pregnant by Draco Malfoy, and I felt so, so sorry for that little girl, because he would never love her the way he loved my brothers.

And then I stopped to think about it. Even as I pushed myself out of my chair, running my fingers through my long red hair, and rubbing at my red-rimmed brown eyes, and made my way after my mother, I thought about this new baby. She'd probably be blond, like Malfoy, maybe she'd have Harry's eyes like Albus Severus did, but they wouldn't be brown and she wouldn't have red hair like my mother did. I was ten-years-old, and I was already making plans as to how to keep my mother distracted enough that I wouldn't need to bring her to St. Mungo's and put her under surveillance, and her father was having another daughter with another man.

But there was no reason to pity this new girl. I could only pity myself, because no matter what my mother said, my father didn't love me. But he would love her, because this child was Malfoy's. And I was Ginny Potter's.

_These are my words  
That I've never said before  
I think I'm doing okay  
And this is the smile  
That I've never shown before  
Somebody shake me 'cause I-  
I must be sleeping. _

I was in a waking nightmare. It was the only possible suggestion. I had to just force myself through this, keep walking till the end, and eventually I'd have to wake up. Mother would be there, leaning over me with wide eyes and her mouth open in worry, waxen and grey, and crying sweet, fat tears onto my pale cheeks. It was all a nightmare and it would end soon, I told myself repeatedly.

I had gone for a shower, because even ten-year-old full-time careers needed to bathe. When I came back, my hair wrapped in a towel because I didn't want to risk taking the time to dry it, she was just lying there, grey and pale but not so different to usual that I thought nothing of it, but she was so cold I couldn't keep myself from screaming. My grandmother came through the floo when I called her; she dealt with my mother, and the Aurors, and my uncle Ron whose face was as red as his hair when he was angry. And I stood by uselessly, fighting down the urge to floo my father and beg him to love me, to pretend, just this once because I needed my mother and she wasn't there anymore.

But I didn't call him.

I didn't think he'd have come.

The Aurors sent my grandmother home, and brought me with them to the Ministry. I told myself, still told myself now that it was a nightmare, that it wasn't real. But then he was there, with a small bump on his stomach beneath his t-shirt, and loose robes thrown over the top and black jeans, the one's my mother hated, with his _fiancé_ by his side, and it hit me like a hammer. This nightmare was real. This was my life now. I had no mother, she had loved my father more than me and it had killed her. I had no father, because he was just a face I recognized but a man I didn't know. And I hated his lover, the one who had broken my parents apart; even though I rationalized it would have been somebody else if not him eventually. I hated him anyway, because they looked so good side by side, perfect for each other, and heartbreakingly happy together and I couldn't ever remember my parents looking like that. Not once.

Maybe they were happy before I was born?

"Come on, Lily," my father said. I glanced up at him, my hands clutching my bare knees, trying to stop them from shaking. I pushed further back into the hard, plastic hospital chair. I didn't want to go with them; I didn't want to live with them.

"I want to go home."

"I know." Harry whispered, reaching out a hand to his daughter. I looked at it, looked at him and then Draco, and stood up myself. I didn't take his hand. I didn't want him.

I wanted my mother.

_Now that we're here, it's so far away  
All the struggle we thought was in vain  
And all the mistakes, one life contained  
They all finally start to go away  
And now that we're here, it's so far away  
And I feel like I can face the day  
I can forgive  
And I'm not ashamed to be  
The Person that I am today. _

I wasn't at Malfoy Manor long before it was time for James and Albus to head back to Hogwarts. I'd be going next year, so it wasn't too bad. I had to last one more year, surrounded by my father and his lover and his lover's parents who always looked down their noses at me and this _baby_ before I could escape for the next seven years. Maybe I'd be lucky, and grandmother will have over thrown the Ministry's decision to make me live here by then. Or maybe Headmaster Flitwick will let me spend the holidays there if I promised not to get into trouble? I'd even live in the caretakers hut with Hagrid if he'd let me, or in the stables, or the Forbidden Forest! Anywhere was better than here.

And now my brothers were leaving me.

We hadn't spoken much for a year, and I had missed James' party, but they were still my brothers and they at least loved me a little. Not as much as they loved our father though, but for children who are loved in return, I supposed that was normal.

Albus Severus, though he was twelve now, spent most of the week I spent at Malfoy Manor with us all together sitting in father's lap. He liked to push his hand against the baby bump and see if he could feel it move, but James said that Albus had always done this, fawned over father, even before they knew he was pregnant.

They weren't going to tell anyone till Harry was divorced, but then someone had overheard them in St Mungo's and they thought it best to tell the papers themselves than let someone else twist the story before sharing it. Either way, people knew now. A Malfoy, having a child with his unmarried lover who was married to someone else, even though Malfoy's wife had divorced him easily and now kept to her suit of the Manor (though she didn't much like me either), a bastard, living in his house, taking his name, because that was the plan. And such a scandal it was too. Though no one much spoke about my mother's suicide, as if it were less important than a bastard Malfoy, as if her life was worth less, as if my pain didn't matter. I hated the people for that, but that wasn't really my father's fault. He hadn't asked for a divorce. He was happy enough to wait until mother came to terms with their separation, no matter how long it took, though it was still cruel of him to give her false hope.

Harry was kind to me; he asked if I was ok, if I needed anything, if I wanted anything. But he didn't really know what I wanted or needed, not the way he knew without being asked that when James slouched around the garden he needed a new broom, or when Scorpius was out of hair gel just because one bit of hair was curling over his forehead more than usual, or when Albus was upset because he sat in a different position on Harry's lap, and Harry just _knew_. But he didn't know me. And it hurt. But he was trying, which was more than the Malfoys were doing, and more than I was doing, because he wasn't my mother and he never would be and that just wasn't good enough.

He'd have a new daughter soon. He didn't need me now.

_I'm so afraid of waking  
Please don't shake me  
Afraid of waking  
Please don't shake me._

When father went into labour it was the day after Christmas and Draco carried him to their bedroom. They were having a home birth; apparently my father had always wanted one.

I watched Healers and Medi-witches flood the Manor, they seemed to be everywhere: a sea of people to fall over themselves at Draco Malfoy's whim. Narcissa had gone to wake my brothers up, and Lucius had followed my father into the room. Apparently it was tradition during home births to have the patriarch of the family present. My father's parents were dead, but it still made me angry to think that they would all assume that this baby wouldn't be a Potter like her siblings, but a Malfoy like these interlopers. But then again, everyone _would_ be a Malfoy soon. The wedding was scheduled for February, to give Harry time to lose the baby weight and to let the new child get hardy enough to brave the cold. In February, my father would become Harry Malfoy, and my brothers would become Potter-Malfoy when Draco officially adopted them. And I would still be Lily Potter, because that was who I am, who my mother wanted me to be, and whether or not I hyphenated my name I knew I didn't belong here.

"He's always wanted to do this," Albus murmured to me.

Narcissa waited by the window, Scorpius leaning against her, the twelve-year-old sleepy and confused though he kept glancing at the bedroom door every other moment as if waiting for the baby to appear. James lay down on the antique divan that passed as decoration in Malfoy Manor instead of actual furniture, his feet crossed at his ankles and a camera in his hand. Albus and I sat side by side on the floor, legs crossed and hair mused from sleep. I had been awake when my father started screaming, nightmares of finding my mother dead had beat him to the punch, but I hadn't cared much of what they thought of me to groom myself before watching my replacement come into the world.

"A home birth?" I asked him, because he was my brother and even if I didn't want to talk about this I wouldn't be rude to him.

"Yeah. He wanted one for me. Daddy said it was snowing, and he had thought about how beautiful it would look to have me in the snow. He said I'd look lovely, pure and innocent and perfect." Albus beamed, head tilted to one side the way our father did when he was embarrassed.

It, I thought, him, not our mother though. She would never be beautiful in Harry's eyes.

"Mother says that home births are usually traditional for firstborns, so Daddy should have had one for James, not me. Scorpius was born at home. But because this is Daddy and Father's first real baby, not Astoria's, it's ok that they have her at home too." Albus continued to talk, but I wasn't listening anymore.

"Mother?" I breathed through the lump in my throat. "Who?"

"Oh, yeah Grandmother Narcissa says that when Daddy and Father get married we can call her Mother, if we wanted. I thought, since we don't have a mother anymore, it would be ok if I started doing it early. James does it too, and Scorpius."

"What does Scorpius call his real mother?" I asked through gritted teeth. No one had asked me to call Narcissa mother, and with good reason. I would have refused and then spat in their face, and I'm not ashamed or appalled to admit that.

"Well, Mummy of course. What else would he call her?" Albus looked so confused that for a moment I forgot how angry I was, how hurt. But once he had wandered over to sit by James' feet I left it overwhelm me. How dare they try and replace my mother? This wasn't my family, this would never be my family, and while I wasn't going to throw my slow developing relationship with my father back into his face, I was never going to accept the Malfoys as my own or myself as one of them. I was a Potter-Weasley, nothing more, nothing less. And I was proud of who I was.

Even if no one else in my family was.

_Now that we're here, it's so far away  
All the struggle we thought was in vain  
And all the mistakes, one life contained  
They all finally start to go away  
And now that we're here, it's so far away  
And I feel like I can face the day  
And I can forgive  
And I'm not ashamed to be  
The Person that I am today. _

I watched her try and sneak into the room from the corner of my eyes. My sweet Lily, my first daughter and Ginny's only. So like her mother in ways that I had over exaggerated, pale and redheaded, her eyes brown like her mother's, like mine were green like my mother's. My mother had red hair and pale skin, and freckles across her nose like this Lily did.

I had never noticed it before she moved to Malfoy Manor, but then again I never really spent much time at Godric's Hollow and Lily never wanted to go out without her mother and I never wanted to go out with Ginny. It would have been hard to have noticed sooner under those circumstances, but perhaps if I wasn't such a coward (for all that I was in Gryffindor) I would have divorced her sooner, and this budding relationship with my daughter would by now be in full bloom. But if wishes were horses… and they aren't. So I watched her in silence, from my rocking chair in the shadowy corner of Cassiopeia's nursery, as she moved towards the crib and peeled back the blankets that hid my youngest child.

"She looks like Narcissa doesn't she?" I asked after a moment of silence. Lily just stared down at the baby, already three weeks old and only meeting her sister for the first time.

"Like his mother yes," Lily agreed, not looking away from the sleeping baby.

"As do you," I said softly, "look like your mother, and mine."

"Is that why you never loved me?" She asked suddenly, turning from the crib to pin me with those wide brown eyes, the only part of her that now didn't remind me of Lily Evans.

I sighed. This would have happened eventually, this conversation had been waiting for years, impatient and festering, and now was the time to throw it all out into the open and hopefully rise up from the ashes as better, happier people. It had to be now, because if I put it off any longer there would never be another chance at redeeming myself in my daughter's eyes.

"I do love you, Lily." I was being honest, whether she believed me or not I loved her. I just didn't know her, didn't understand her, and couldn't bear to look at her without seeing Ginny, pale and shaking, crying with wide eyes and mouth looking down at me at night like a Death Eater about to strike. She had been a feature in many of my nightmares, first, fears about losing her, then about her turning on me, and then about me turning on her. Fevered thoughts in fevered dreams, but fears so profound that they made me afraid of her and incapable of loving her. I didn't hate the woman, could never hate the woman who had given me three wonderful children and years of her life. But I didn't like her. I didn't, although it had been cruel and irresponsible of me to take that dislike out on Ginny's daughter, my daughter I corrected myself mentally. None of this was Lily's fault.

"I just couldn't look at you when you were younger without seeing your mother, and I couldn't look at your mother without hating myself." I shrugged at her, not knowing what else to say, how to explain myself and my thoughts without digging up ghosts and memories that were better left forgotten.

"I want to make it up to you. Tell me what I have to do to fix this!" I reached out for her, my hand never wavering, and she just stared at it like she did that day in St. Mungo's as if my fingers were snakes getting ready to bite her.

"Just love me," she whispered at last, reaching out to touch the tips of her fingers to my own.

I grabbed her arm then, tugged her to me, into my lap on the rocking chair in my baby's nursery and held her as she cried. I pressed my face to her red hair, taking in the smell of her, of lilies and rain, the way Remus had described my mother's scent once with just a hint of sandalwood that came from spending so much time with Severus Snape. This Lily smelt like that, without the sandalwood; she smelt like home. I held my daughter tight against me, I let her sleep on me, and long after Cassiopeia had woken and Draco had come to fetch her, I let Lily sleep, running my fingers through her hair as Draco and I kissed good morning and I kissed my baby on the forehead one hand running over her flaxen wisps. I held my eldest daughter tight until she woke up and kissed me on the cheek.

She was more like my mother had been than my wife, for all they looked alike. And I had loved my mother, who had died to save me, and I loved her still, and I loved my daughter too, enough to die for her if needs be. I only wish I had realized sooner.

**The End**

I put in the character names depending on the highest rating. So it's Harry and Draco as they are the slash couple, and Harry and Lily are the family couple, just before anyone asks! Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoyed it.


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